The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Toronto is undergoing a 'remarkable transformation', says Charles Birnbaum, and unlike most large scale redevelopment efforts, landscape architecture is leading the way. With abundant photos Birnbaum surveys the new works framing the city's growth.

June 4 - Huffington Post

The arrest of a Vallejo, California man for painting a crosswalk at a dangerous intersection near his home is the latest guerrilla urbanist intervention to run afoul of the law.

June 4 - CBS Sacramento

Brian Naylor of NPR and Stephen Lee Davis of Transportation for America examine different aspects of the government's inability to ensure that bridges are in a state of good repair.

June 4 - NPR

The recent reversal of America's historic trends in city growth, driving rates, and home sizes have urbanists wondering about their long-term prospects as the economy recovers. Recent data indicates one of those trends didn't have staying power.

June 4 - The Atlantic Cities

Seeking to standardize what is considered an ad hoc and inconsistent approach to allowing extra density in downtown developments, Austin's city council will consider a new bonus program later this month.

June 4 - Austin American-Statesman

With the privacy concerns that've arisen with its questionable data gathering, many people are unlikely to welcome the idea of a Google blimp floating overhead. But the billion people the company wants to connect to the Internet may feel differently.

June 4 - The Wall Street Journal

New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg, the last World War Two veteran to serve in the body, passed away on Monday. Kate Hinds looks at the record of 'the driving force between some of the country's most transformative transportation policies.'

June 4 - WNYC: Transportation Nation

BLOG POST

Shutting down cities as a response to terrorism makes such violence more rewarding and thus more tempting.

June 3 - Michael Lewyn

Since the 1990s, Maryland has been at the forefront of Smart Growth planning at the statewide level. However, a new study shows that the state's incentive-based approach may not be adequate for inducing the changes envisioned by planners.

June 3 - The Atlantic Cities

The protests that've gripped Istanbul, and several other Turkish cities in recent days, reflect tensions over the 'autocratic ambitions' of the country's government and the cultural transformations it has pushed through grand redevelopment projects.

June 3 - The New York Times

The Detroit Zoo's 'healthy, breeding female giraffe'? A classic Ford XD Cobra prototype? Belle Isle? Mark Stryker and John Gallagher look at some of the city-owned assets that could be sold to help pay off the city's monstrous debt.

June 3 - Detroit Free Press

The rejection may ultimately doom the $6 billion pipeline to transport Alberta's oil sands crude west through British Columbia for export. Final word is reserved for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, but many say an overturn would be highly unusual.

June 3 - CBC News

Ginia Bellafante looks at the fate of a public housing project conceived with much fanfare in the early 1970s by progressive architects following the theory of 'Defensible Space' authored by architect and planner Oscar Newman.

June 3 - The New York Times

A case making its way through the California courts pits Orange County versus the Sierra Club. At stake is the availability of publicly held GIS data at a reasonable cost.

June 3 - ORCA Litigation & Advisory LLC

In two new exhibits on Los Angeles's modern architectural history - part of the sprawling Pacific Standard Time Presents initiative - the city's infamous infatuation with the automobile is examined and then left behind in the rear-view mirror.

June 3 - LA Weekly

The mayors of Canada's 22 largest municipalities are pushing the federal government to extend a subsidy program used to assist 600,000 low-income households that is due to expire next year.

June 3 - The Globe and Mail

BLOG POST

Small business owners who drive themselves nuts arguing against the reuse of on-street parking with other balanced transportation solutions is a shame because there is so much good data to prove it's actually very good for business.

June 3 - Ian Sacs

While the launch of NYC's bike share program was all the rage in the U.S. last week, Moscow began a program of its own with 220 red bikes at 30 stations. Sally McGrane frames it more as a 'triumph for political activism' than a commuting revolution.

June 3 - The New Yorker

If you only listened to the IBMs of the world, you'd think the path to building better cities was through high tech solutions. But old fashioned dialogue and discussion, facilitated by some low tech platforms, works best, argues Alec Appelbaum.

June 3 - The New York Times

The migrants that have swelled China's cities in recent decades still remain 'second-class citizens', unable to sell their rural land or have access to public services like schools or medical care. Will the country's new leaders change this?

June 2 - The Economist